HMS ''Conway'' was a

sixth rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a sixth-rate was the designation for small warships mounting between 20 and 28 carriage-mounted guns on a single deck, sometimes with smaller guns on the upper works a ...

of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against Fr ...

, built by

Chatham Dockyard Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century ...

and launched on 2 February 1832. She was lent to the Mercantile Marine Association of Liverpool in February 1859 to act as a training ship for boys, and gave her name to HMS ''Conway'', a series of ships and a shore-based school. When took her place as the training ship in 1861, the two ships swapped names. Under her new name of ''Winchester'' she became the Aberdeen Royal Naval Reserve ship on 28 August 1861.

Design and construction

Sir Robert Seppings Sir Robert Seppings, FRS (11 December 176725 April 1840) was an English naval architect. His experiments with diagonal trusses in the construction of ships led to his appointment as Surveyor of the Navy in 1813, a position he held until 1835. Bi ...

in 1828, the ''Conway'' class were a broader version of of 1826. They were intended as

s, which placed them in a category of ships with more than 24 but less than 36 guns, and commanded by an officer of the rank of

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

. These ships were constructed of wood in traditional shipbuilding fashion, although iron braces and trussed were used for increased longitudinal strength. They were armed with a traditional arrangement of broadside, smoothbore muzzle-loading guns, and in common with contemporary Royal Navy practice for small ships, these guns were

carronade A carronade is a short, smoothbore, cast-iron cannon which was used by the Royal Navy. It was first produced by the Carron Company, an ironworks in Falkirk, Scotland, and was used from the mid-18th century to the mid-19th century. Its main funct ...

s (with the exception of a pair of small long guns on the focsle as chasers). Twenty 32-pounder carronades were mounted on the upper deck and a further six 18-pounder carronades were placed on the quarterdeck. The sail plan was an entirely conventional

ship rig A full-rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel's sail plan with three or more masts, all of them square-rigged. A full-rigged ship is said to have a ship rig or be ship-rigged. Such vessels also have each mast stepped in three se ...

, and they were complemented with 175 men and boys.

Fate

She was broken up at Sheerness in 1871, a process that was completed on 3 June 1871.

Citations

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Conway (1832) 1832 ships Ships built in Chatham Victorian-era corvettes of the United Kingdom Corvettes of the Royal Navy Training ships of the Royal Navy First Opium War ships of the United Kingdom